OT: The Stand "Limited Series"

[Gerard]

I'm just wondering if anyone here has been watching the CBS miniseries version of Stephen Kings The Stand.

When I first heard, months ago, that it was coming in December I was all excited.  I remember, enjoy and have watched several times the 1994 version.  I thought an "updating" would be fun.  Of course, I didn't pay close attention as to how CBS was going to air it.  I simply believed it would be like any other program, including a miniseries (now called "limited" series) on regular broadcast TV:  a program on regular broadcast TV.  But, no, that wasn't to be the case.  It would be on something called CBS "All Access."  I learned that means having a regular TV set simply would not do.  One would need one of those pricey "smart" TVs that are like the viewing port on the Starship Enterprise with all these programming and other sundry things.  Along with that, you gotta get and download the CBS "All Access" app (I hate that word - app) and pay for it. 

Being a kvetcher, I whine, complained and pissed and moaned.   Why wasn't it being shown on regular TV?  Why does one need some futuristic contraption and dish out the loot?  Friends told me that's how it's now being done.  Even major networks are subtley abandoning "traditional" broadcasting for computerized "apps" that work only on certain gizmos and, furthermore, one must now pay EXTRA to watch what for 3/4 of a century came free.  So why call it "All Access" when only some can access it?  I call it the "Disneyfying" of television:  just as the Disney Corporation has priced out (intentionally) the working middle class in order to cater to the monied 1-4 percenters, TV is doing the same.  Want to watch something now?  Pay extra for it or be left viewing the free left-overs. 

So, being bitchy about not being able to see this new version of The Stand, it enthralled me to find out it's actually not that good.  It has been receiving mediocre reviews ranging from okay to bad.  One critic has stated (even though he's seen only about half of the nine episodes) that one, especially a "virgin" to the story, should just go and watch the much-better '94 original miniseries.  Seems like  I'm not missing a whole lot because I won't run out and buy some new, expensive major household appliance and then fork over more money to CBS for what's seemingly turning out to be a much-ado-about-nothing. 

But, finally, to the main question and purpose of this post.  Anyone here watching it and what do you think of it?

Gerard

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I've had CBS All Access for quite a while now (mostly to watch their various Star Trek series) but I haven't watched any of The Stand yet. Not because of reviews, just because I've been caught up watching other things on Netflix. I'm sure I will watch it eventually. But be that as it may, you may find these entries in TV critic Matt Roush's column interesting:

Ask Matt: ..., 'The Stand' & ...
(Check out "Not Standing for It" and "The Stand's Timing, ...")

[Gerard]

I know it's pretty much sour grapes on my part, but I feel rather vindicated (and just a smoodge delighted) that this version of "The Stand" has been basically flat.  I'm just so ticked off that it seems that every network is now dumping its regular channels for trendy "streaming" and "plussing" for new programming and all that other stuff, leaving 10-year-old reruns for regular broadcasting.  Want to watch all our fantastic, new, hot-to-view, it's-all-the-water-cooler-talk stuff?  Why just fork over more and more and more money!  For each one is just starts (notice it STARTS) at five bucks more a month! 

Sorry, I'm already giving them enough money buy having to but cable.  Not another penny.  If consumers simply stood together and told the networks they will just refuse to pull more bucks out of the wallet, just watch how fast all those "stream-and-plus-only" shows will go running to regular channels at no extra cost.  CBS won't make a single cent off of Star Trek stuff if everyone refuses to pay extra for it.  It'll shift it all to regular avenue at no extra cost to viewers and CBS can make its money the old-fashioned way:  commercials.

Hissy-fit done.

Gerard

[Mysterious Benefactor]

CBS All Access has never cost me more than $5 a month - and for some reason that they haven't really explained to me, for the past 8 months they've only been charging me $2.50 a month. But who am I to complain?!

[dom]

We just signed up. $5.99. I have no intention on watching The Stand, old or new. Stephen King's work nauseates me. All of it, crap. And now I want CBSAA for $2.50!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

And now I want CBSAA for $2.50!!

I wish I could tell you how to get it but I haven't got the first clue...

[Brian]

I agree with you about streaming apps like CBS All Access (and Disney+, etc.)  I do have cable, but the only streaming I have is Amazon Prime, which streams through my Blu-Ray player, and I don’t use Netflix, either.  Over the years, I have built up a nice movie collection, and there is more than enough on my own DVDs/Blu-Rays to keep me occupied for hours on end.  I won’t pay those streaming services, really more on principal than anything else.

And I also like the 1994 version of “The Stand.”

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Given his dislike of the show's previous eps, it's interesting that Matt Roush included it in his recommendations for yesterday's ep:

Worth Watching: ..., Fallout on 'The Stand,' ...

The Stand (streaming on CBS All Access): The Free Zoners of Boulder are reeling after the devastating explosion from last week's cliffhanger, which serves as a wakeup call for a chastened and ailing Mother Abagail (Whoopi Goldberg) to send her most trusted survivors off on a treacherous journey. On foot? Like this series doesn't drag enough already? At least the villainous bombers, Harold (Owen Teague) and Nadine (Amber Heard), are on motorcycles, speeding to meet the "Dark Man" in New Vegas, though Randall Flagg (Alexander Skarsgård) has very different fates in store for his puppets. Stephen King's son Owen King wrote the episode.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

And once again Matt Roush includes the show in his recommendations:

Worth Watching: ..., ‘Stand’-Off in Vegas, ...

The Stand (streaming on CBS All Access): The penultimate chapter of Stephen King‘s dark epic takes place mostly amid the violent debauchery of New Vegas, ruled by fear from Randall Flagg’s (Alexander Skarsgård) glass tower in the Inferno Hotel. (Subtlety is not this series’ friend.) While an injured Stu (James Marsden) sweats it out on the road, with only Kojak the dog for company, his fellow travelers — Glen (Greg Kinnear), Larry (Jovan Adepo) and Ray (Irene Bedard) —face a reckoning in Sin City. So, eventually, does the “Dark Man” Flagg and his cartoonish followers in an apocalyptic climax. King himself wrote an original “coda” that premieres in a week to wrap everything up.